Page 85 of Girl, Undone
The court was clearing out.Day four.Final day.The jury had deliberated for six hours and come back with a verdict: guilty on all counts.Sentencing recommendation: death.
The camera showed people filing out of the gallery.Some looked satisfied.Some looked shaken.A few were crying.These were the people who'd waited years for this moment, and now that it was here, they didn't know what to do with it.
Ella watched them go.
Watched them shuffle down the aisle toward the exit.
Watched them.
She hit pause.
There.Third row.A woman standing up and gathering her things.
Ella zoomed in until the pixels started to break apart.The woman's face filled the screen.Mid-thirties maybe.Short brown hair cut in a practical bob.Minimal makeup.Dark blazer over a white blouse.She looked composed and professional, like she was part of the legal counsel.
But there was something about her face.
Something Ella recognized but couldn't quite place.
She'd seen this woman before.Somewhere.The shape of her jaw.The set of her eyes.It felt like a song you knew the melody to, but couldn't remember the lyrics.
Ella grabbed a pen and a notepad and started writing.Brown hair, but was that her natural color?Could be dyed.The cut was short and neat.Not stylish exactly, but not frumpy either.Functional.The kind of haircut someone got when they didn't want to spend time on it in the morning.
The blazer was off-the-rack.Nothing expensive.Dark gray or maybe navy.It was hard to tell in the courtroom lighting.The blouse underneath was white and plain.No jewelry that Ella could see.No earrings.No necklace.Nothing that would stand out or be memorable.
Smart if you were trying to blend in.Smart if you didn't want anyone to remember you later.
Ella zoomed in tighter.
Was she projecting here?Everyone in that room had just been privy to the finer details of five homicides and then seen a man sentenced to death.It was only natural they'd be feeling somber.Maybe she was so desperate to find the killer that she was seeing malice where there was only grief or exhaustion or boredom.
She saved the screenshot and labeled it with the timestamp and camera number.Then she kept watching.
The woman moved down the aisle.The camera followed her for a moment before panning away to catch someone else, this time a reporter doing a stand-up outside the courthouse.Ella cursed and scrubbed back through the footage to find another angle.
Camera nine.Same timestamp.Different perspective.
There.The woman again.She was near the exit now.She turned slightly, and her profile came into view.Strong nose.Determined chin.And then she was gone, out the door and into the Louisiana afternoon.
Ella leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling.Who the hell was this woman?
Think.Think goddammit.
She'd been at the trial.She'd been in the courtroom when Creed got sentenced.But why did she look so familiar?Where else had Ella seen her?
Not at work.Ella would remember if she'd run into her at the FBI office.
Not socially.Ella didn't have much of a social life, and the few friends she did have were scattered across the country.
So where?
She closed her eyes and tried to visualize the trial.Tried to put herself back in that courtroom.She'd been in the back room most of the time, but she'd come out after the verdict was read.Had stood near the prosecution table while the judge thanked the jury for their service.
And then –
Goddammit.
Ella's eyes snapped open.
